'Icons' author Margaret Stohl: Why I fictionship

'Icons' author Margaret Stohl: Why I fictionship

LOVE this idea. Love, love, LOVE it. Can you tell I really love it? (Joyce stops to take a breath. OK, better now.) Margaret Stohl, author of Icons, book one of a new series, joins us to talk about fictional heroes with an awesome twist. (Margaret, incidentally, is the No. 1 New York Times best-selling co-author with Kami Garcia of the Beautiful Creatures novels.)

Margaret: I fictionship. I love fictional men. I find Damon Salvatore infinitely more attractive than the actor who plays him on Vampire Diaries. Adrian Ivashkov has been coming into my dreams for years, and he’s still a whole Vampire Academy movie away from coming to the big screen. Han Solo would never wear the earring Harrison Ford wears. Mal from Firefly is a heartbreaker — and I’ve watched the proposal episode of Castle 10 times — but I’m not sure I’d be that into listening to Nathan Fillion talk about his Canadian football team. Sam and Dean Winchester sitting on the top of the Impala sharing their feelings over a beer is a reward worth driving any Supernatural demon away — but in real life, they’d have crippling co-dependency issues. No matter how smart he is, Benedict Cumberbatch is no Sherlock, and neither David nor Matt can really time travel in a blue telephone box.

Nathan Fillion and Gina Torres from “Firefly” in 2002. (Photo: Fox)

Which is, to be honest, disappointing.

I understand that fictional men aren’t real. Not REALLY REAL. I know this the same way I wonder if my readers are disappointed when they meet me. I know I’m not a Caster, not anymore than the actor Alden Ehrenreich is really Ethan Wate. Which he isn’t, no matter how adorable he was on the big (and now little) screen.

Which was, by the way, very.

But that doesn’t mean they’re not real to me. And I know you know what I mean.

In that same spirit — of the not REALLY REAL — let me introduce you to my favorite FICTIONALLY FICTIONAL boyfriends. The ones who are even less real than the regular old unreal ones, and yet somehow thus even more perfect to me. Because my imagination is the four corners of the fandom world, and because I am at heart a BrowncoatSuperWhoLockStrigoi (part Firefly, part Supernatural, part Doctor Who, part Sherlock, part Vampire Academy.)

Thus, my top five BEYOND FICTIONAL boyfriends:

1. Mal Castle. Which is to say the blockbuster best-selling crime novelist Rick Castle as played by Nathan Fillion in his younger, Firefly space Captain Mal days. Mal Castle can keep the low-slung gun holster and wear it to Rick Castle’s Hamptons estate.

2. Indy Solo. Or, in other words, Han Solo in a fedora with a whip. Enough said.

3. Damon Winchester. Think bad-boy vampire demon hunter, who, along with his brother, Stephan Winchester, drinks cans of blood out of a cooler while toasting the demise of every salted and staked creature from hell.

4. Doctor Who(DoneIt). Or, as I think of him, DocLock — because why shouldn’t Sherlock himself be the Twelfth Doctor? He could fly through time solving crime. I mean, isn’t Watson the ultimate blue-box companion anyways?

5. Atticus Finch, Dashing Law Student. Because think about it — there has to be a story there. A really attractive story, with great bone structure and a heart made of do-the-right-thing heroic gold.

There you go. Those are my fictionships. Now tell me yours. (To leave a comment, click on the gray comment balloon on the left side of your browser window.)

Here’s the blurb about Icons:

Your heart beats only with their permission.

Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol’s family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn’t know it was fighting.

Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside — safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can’t avoid.

She’s different. She survived. Why?

When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador’s privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn’t a coincidence. It’s a conspiracy.

Within the Icon’s reach, Dol, Ro, Tima and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions — which they’ve always thought to be their greatest weaknesses — may actually be their greatest strengths.

Best-selling author Margaret Stohl delivers the first book in a heart-pounding series set in a haunting new world where four teens must piece together the mysteries of their pasts — in order to save the future.